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Top Checklists on HN

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Re: Top Checklists on HN

#21

Post by bpicolo »

chrismorgan wrote: post #18
circular_logic wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you can get around these problems: Algola has something they call a DSN that runs your search backed all over the word. So you have good latency's. [ https://www.algolia.com/infra ] Additionally you could bundle only what you use in there library to make the page lighter.

But by the looks of it, the search backend isn’t being run all over the world, else latency would be decent. The vast majority of the JavaScript is superfluous third-party libraries like AngularJS. The actual app is under 2,000 lines of code. I do not expect it would be difficult to cut the frameworks out of it at all, for a lighter and faster experience that only weighed a few kilobytes.

Their search backend is, in my experience, significantly faster than you'd expect of latencies through a typical app backend - request-to-render in 10s of millis or less. They run their search indices directly inside an nginx module, it's an interesting architecture to read up on.

The JS they kick you off with is a pretty decent way to make a thorough, not-trivial search experience, you can get much more than a list of results (faceting and such builtin)

(https://community.algolia.com/instantsearch.js/)

The all-over-the-world bit is an optional part of paid plans, it's quite possible HN isn't using the global DSN

Re: Top Checklists on HN

#22

Post by codingdave »

ourmandave wrote: post #14

Are these checklists updated? The "Web Developer Checklist" was 5 years ago. And the "quick website launch checklist" was 7 years.

No, this is just a search for old posts with the word 'checklist' in it. The actual quality and timeliness of any given list is something you'll need to judge for yourself.

Re: Top Checklists on HN

#23

Post by csallen »

nerdponx wrote: post #13
chrismorgan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General commentary based on your use of the words “enhance” and “near instant”: Especially in places of higher latency (e.g. Australia), using JavaScript for things like this does not enhance the user experience, but rather increases the delay, because additional round trips are required, especially when it’s over TLS on a different host as in this case. On a good connection at these latencies (~300ms), these near in…

I really wish people would actively avoid the fancy JavaScript SPA approach. (And I work on such an SPA.) There’s a place for them, but this is not a good demo of that place. Or just have a button somewhere for a "basic HTML" version. Why are modern developers and UX designers so averse to giving users control over their experience?

Honest answer to your question: Because they have to-do lists a million miles long, and "make an HTML-only version" is often at the very bottom of that list, because it may require high investment while providing few benefits relative to other things on the to-do list. Also, because "giving users control" can mean a million different things… colors, fonts, sizes, dimensions, HTML vs JS, etc.

Re: Top Checklists on HN

#24

Post by WhompingWindows »

fasteo wrote: post #12

At the time of this writing, this post (89 points) is already in the second page of its "own" list.

It's now on the first page for me, very meta. Does anyone here use checklists in their day to day? My work tends to shift daily/weekly/monthly, I'm not usually doing similar things most days.

Re: Top Checklists on HN

#25

Post by ryandrake »

nerdponx wrote: post #13
chrismorgan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General commentary based on your use of the words “enhance” and “near instant”: Especially in places of higher latency (e.g. Australia), using JavaScript for things like this does not enhance the user experience, but rather increases the delay, because additional round trips are required, especially when it’s over TLS on a different host as in this case. On a good connection at these latencies (~300ms), these near in…

I really wish people would actively avoid the fancy JavaScript SPA approach. (And I work on such an SPA.) There’s a place for them, but this is not a good demo of that place. Or just have a button somewhere for a "basic HTML" version. Why are modern developers and UX designers so averse to giving users control over their experience?

I agree with your point (here, have an upvote), but really, this should be, and already is, a browser option. Easier to do that than to get thousands of web sites to change. I know Safari has "Disable Styles" and "Disable Javascript" tucked away under the "Developer" menu of all things. Firefox has a "No Style" option somewhere in View. Would be better if it were easier to get to or even the default.

Re: Top Checklists on HN

#26

Post by dredmorbius »

nerdponx wrote: post #13
chrismorgan wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

General commentary based on your use of the words “enhance” and “near instant”: Especially in places of higher latency (e.g. Australia), using JavaScript for things like this does not enhance the user experience, but rather increases the delay, because additional round trips are required, especially when it’s over TLS on a different host as in this case. On a good connection at these latencies (~300ms), these near in…

I really wish people would actively avoid the fancy JavaScript SPA approach. (And I work on such an SPA.) There’s a place for them, but this is not a good demo of that place. Or just have a button somewhere for a "basic HTML" version. Why are modern developers and UX designers so averse to giving users control over their experience?

It's occurred to me that it may be a market seqmentation tactic. Possibly unintentional.

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/ikRoMcRw...

Re: Top Checklists on HN

#28

Post by nerdponx »

ryandrake wrote: post #25
nerdponx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish people would actively avoid the fancy JavaScript SPA approach. (And I work on such an SPA.) There’s a place for them, but this is not a good demo of that place. Or just have a button somewhere for a "basic HTML" version. Why are modern developers and UX designers so averse to giving users control over their experience?

I agree with your point (here, have an upvote), but really, this should be, and already is, a browser option. Easier to do that than to get thousands of web sites to change. I know Safari has "Disable Styles" and "Disable Javascript" tucked away under the "Developer" menu of all things. Firefox has a "No Style" option somewhere in View. Would be better if it were easier to get to or even the default.

Disabling JavaScript is pointless when it also disables the functionality of the website.

Re: Top Checklists on HN

#29

Post by mygo »

superasn wrote: post #16

This is a great way to find many great posts and learn from HN: "things i learned" https://hn.algolia.com/?query=things%20i%20learned&sort=byPo... "wish someone told" https://hn.algolia.com/?query=wish%20someone%20told&sort=byP... "how did you" https://hn.algolia.com/?query=how%20did%20you&sort=byPopular... I'm sure there are many others like this too!

works for comments too, although it’s pretty much hunting for long-tail keywords

“pm me”

“opportunity”

“pent up demand”

“I’d pay”

“I miss”

etc

Re: Top Checklists on HN

#30

Post by chrismorgan »

csallen wrote: post #23
nerdponx wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish people would actively avoid the fancy JavaScript SPA approach. (And I work on such an SPA.) There’s a place for them, but this is not a good demo of that place. Or just have a button somewhere for a "basic HTML" version. Why are modern developers and UX designers so averse to giving users control over their experience?

Honest answer to your question: Because they have to-do lists a million miles long, and "make an HTML-only version" is often at the very bottom of that list, because it may require high investment while providing few benefits relative to other things on the to-do list. Also, because "giving users control" can mean a million different things… colors, fonts, sizes, dimensions, HTML vs JS, etc.

And if it’s not the same code base, it’ll probably be buggy, because it’s not the UI people normally use.

Server-side rendering of the same UI avoids that hazard, at a much lower cost.

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